The name Manhattan derives from the Munsee dialect of the Lenape language 'manaháhtaan' (where 'manah-' means "gather", '-aht-' means "bow" and '-aan' is an abstract element used to form verb stems). The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows". According to a Munsee tradition recorded in the 19th century, the island was named so for a grove of hickory trees at the lower end that was considered ideal for the making of bows.
It was first recorded in writing as Manna-hata, in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon).[49] A 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the Hudson River). Alternative folk etymologies include "island of many hills",[50] "the island where we all became intoxicated" and simply "island", as well as a phrase descriptive of the whirlpool at Hell Gate.[51]

It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped.[54] Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there in 1609, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present-day Albany.[55]

According to a letter by Pieter Janszoon Schagen, Peter Minuit and Dutch colonists acquired Manhattan on May 24, 1626, from unnamed Native American people, who are believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape,[59] in exchange for traded goods worth 60 guilders,[24] often said to be worth US$24. The figure of 60 guilders comes from a letter by a representative of the Dutch Estates General and member of the board of the Dutch West India Company, Pieter Janszoon Schagen, to the Estates General in November 1626.[60] In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 (or 60 guilders) to US$23.[61] "[A] variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars," as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York.[62] Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, according to the Institute for Social History of Amsterdam.[63] Based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992.[64] Historians James and Michelle Nevius revisited the issue in 2014, suggesting that using the prices of beer and brandy as monetary equivalencies, the price Minuit paid would have the purchasing power of somewhere between $2,600 and $15,600 in current dollars.[65] According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsee Native Americans, who were willing to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for the island that was mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks, a band of the Wappinger.[66]

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony.[67] New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.[68] In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II.[69] The Dutch, under Director General Stuyvesant, successfully negotiated with the English to produce 24 articles of provisional transfer, which sought to retain for the extant citizens of New Netherland their previously attained liberties (including freedom of religion) under new colonial English rulers.[70][57]

The Dutch Republic regained the city in August 1673, renaming it "New Orange". New Netherland was ultimately ceded to the English in November 1674 through the Treaty of Westminster.[71]

New York City played a complex role in the American Civil War. The city's strong commercial ties to the southern United States existed for many reasons, including the industrial power of the Hudson River, which allowed trade with stops such as the West Point Foundry, one of the great manufacturing operations in the early United States; and the city's Atlantic Ocean ports, rendering New York City the American powerhouse in terms of industrial trade between the northern and southern United States. New York's growing immigrant population, which had originated largely from Germany and Ireland, began in the late 1850s to include waves of Italians and Central and Eastern European Jews flowing in en masse. Anger arose about conscription, with resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service leading to resentment against Lincoln's war policies and fomenting paranoia about free Blacks taking the poor immigrants' jobs,[86] culminating in the three-day-long New York Draft Riots of July 1863. These intense war-time riots are counted among the worst incidents of civil disorder in American history, with an estimated 119 participants and passersby massacred.[87]

The rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply after the Civil War, and Manhattan became the first stop for millions seeking a new life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France.[88][89] The new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city became a hotbed of revolution (including anarchists and communists among others), syndicalism, racketeering, and unionization.

The construction of the New York City Subway, which opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together, as did additional bridges to Brooklyn. In the 1920s Manhattan experienced large arrivals of African-Americans as part of the Great Migration from the southern United States, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that included new skyscrapers competing for the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century.[92] Manhattan's majority white ethnic group declined from 98.7% in 1900 to 58.3% by 1990.[93]

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City, including Manhattan, to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[104] While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.[105]

By the 1990s crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Murder rates that had reached 2,245 in 1990 plummeted to 537 by 2008, and the crack epidemic and its associated drug-related violence came under greater control.[106] The outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with low interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of the real estate market.[107] Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in Manhattan's economy.

On September 11, 2001, two of four hijacked planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, and the towers subsequently collapsed. 7 World Trade Center collapsed due to fires and structural damage caused by heavy debris falling from the collapse of the Twin Towers. The other buildings within the World Trade Center complex were damaged beyond repair and soon after demolished. The collapse of the Twin Towers caused extensive damage to other surrounding buildings and skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, and resulted in the deaths of 2,606 people, in addition to those on the planes. Since 2001, most of Lower Manhattan has been restored, although there has been controversy surrounding the rebuilding. Many rescue workers and residents of the area developed several life-threatening illnesses that have led to some of their subsequent deaths.[111]A memorial at the site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, and the museum opened in 2014. In 2014, the new One World Trade Center, at 1,776 feet (541 m) and formerly known as the Freedom Tower, became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere,[112] while other skyscrapers were under construction at the site.

On October 31, 2017, a terrorist took a rental pickup truck and deliberately drove down a bike path alongside the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others before crashing into a school bus.[123]

According to the United States Census Bureau, New York County has a total area of 33.6 square miles (87 km2), of which 22.8 square miles (59 km2) is land and 10.8 square miles (28 km2) (32%) is water.[3] The northern segment of Upper Manhattan represents a geographic panhandle. Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles (59 km2) in area, 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide, at its widest (near 14th Street).[125]

Early in the 19th century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street.[126] When building the World Trade Center in 1968, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m³) of material was excavated from the site.[127] Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park City,[128] The result was a 700-foot (210-m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (452 m), covering 92 acres (37 ha), providing a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (12 ha) of parks;[129]Hudson River Park was subsequently opened in stages beginning in 1998.[130]

One neighborhood of New York County, Marble Hill, is contiguous with the U.S. mainland. Marble Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the Harlem River Ship Canal, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan.[131] Before World War I, the section of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.[132]

Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial land reclamation along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural variation in its topography has been evened out.[50]

Geologically, a predominant feature of the substrata of Manhattan is that the underlying bedrock base of the island rises considerably closer to the surface near Midtown Manhattan, dips down lower between 29th Street and Canal Street, then rises toward the surface again in Lower Manhattan. It has been widely believed that the depth to bedrock was the primary underlying reason for the clustering of skyscrapers in the Midtown and Financial District areas, and their absence over the intervening territory between these two areas.[137][138] However, research has shown that economic factors played a bigger part in the locations of these skyscrapers.[139][140][141]

According to the United States Geological Survey, an updated analysis of seismic hazard in July 2014 revealed a "slightly lower hazard for tall buildings" in Manhattan than previously assessed. Scientists estimated this lessened risk based upon a lower likelihood than previously thought of slow shaking near New York City, which would be more likely to cause damage to taller structures from an earthquake in the vicinity of the city.[142]

In Manhattan, uptown means north (more precisely north-northeast, which is the direction the island and its street grid system are oriented) and downtown means south (south-southwest).[158] This usage differs from that of most American cities, where downtown refers to the central business district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the Financial District at the southern tip of the island, and Midtown Manhattan. The term uptown also refers to the northern part of Manhattan above 72nd Street and downtown to the southern portion below 14th Street,[159] with Midtown covering the area in between, though definitions can be rather fluid depending on the situation.

Fifth Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue and increase heading away from Fifth Avenue, at a rate of 100 per block on most streets.[159] South of Waverly Place, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. Although the grid does start with 1st Street, just north of Houston Street (the southernmost street divided in west and east portions; pronounced HOW-stin), the grid does not fully take hold until north of 14th Street, where nearly all east-west streets are numerically identified, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island. Streets in Midtown are usually one-way, with the few exceptions generally being the busiest cross-town thoroughfares (14th, 23rd, 34th, and 42nd Streets, for example), which are bidirectional across the width of Manhattan Island. The rule of thumb is that odd-numbered streets run west, while even-numbered streets run east.[125]

Winters are cold and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachians keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 32.6 °F (0.3 °C);[164] temperatures usually drop to 10 °F (−12 °C) several times per winter,[164][165] and reach 60 °F (16 °C) several days in the coldest winter month.[164] Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from chilly to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically warm to hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 76.5 °F (24.7 °C) in July.[164] Nighttime conditions are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, while daytime temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 17 days each summer[166] and in some years exceed 100 °F (38 °C). Extreme temperatures have ranged from −15 °F (−26 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934, up to 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936.[166]

Summer evening temperatures are elevated by the urban heat island effect, which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as 7 °F (4 °C) when winds are slow.[167] Manhattan receives 49.9 inches (1,270 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall between 1981 and 2010 has been 25.8 inches (66 cm); this varies considerably from year to year.[166]

At the 2010 Census, there were 1,585,873 people living in Manhattan, an increase of 3.2% since 2000. Since 2010, Manhattan's population was estimated by the Census Bureau to have increased 5.0% to 1,664,727 as of 2017[update], representing 19.3% of New York City's population of 8,622,698 and 8.4% of New York State's population of 19,849,399.[2][174] As of the 2017 Census estimates, the population density of New York County was around 72,918 people per square mile (28,154/km²), the highest population density of any county in the United States.[2] In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 101,548 people per square mile (39,208/km²).[2][174]

In 2006, the New York City Department of City Planning projected that Manhattan's population would increase by 289,000 people between 2000 and 2030, an increase of 18.8% over the period.[175] However, since then, Lower Manhattan has been experiencing a baby boom, well above the overall birth rate in Manhattan, with the area south of Canal Street witnessing 1,086 births in 2010, 12% greater than 2009 and over twice the number born in 2001.[176] The Financial District alone has witnessed growth in its population to approximately 43,000 as of 2014[update], nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census.[177] The southern tip of Manhattan became the fastest growing part of New York City between 1990 and 2014.[178]

According to the 2009 American Community Survey,[179] the average household size was 2.11, and the average family size was 3.21. Approximately 59.4% of the population over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher. Approximately 27.0% of the population is foreign-born, and 61.7% of the population over the age of 5 speak only English at home. People of Irish ancestry make up 7.8% of the population, while Italian Americans make up 6.8% of the population. German Americans and Russian Americans make up 7.2% and 6.2% of the population respectively.[180]

Manhattan is one of the highest-income places in the United States with a population greater than one million. As of 2012[update], Manhattan's cost of living was the highest in the United States,[181] but the borough also contained the country's most profound level of income inequality.[182] Manhattan is also the United States county with the highest per capita income, being the sole county whose per capita income exceeded $100,000 in 2010.[183] However, from 2011–2015 Census data of New York County, the per capita income was recorded in 2015 dollars as $64,993, with the median household income at $72,871, and poverty at 17.6%.[184] In 2012, The New York Times reported that inequality was higher than in most developing countries, stating, "The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites made more than 40 times what the lowest fifth reported, a widening gap (it was 38 times, the year before) surpassed by only a few developing countries".[185]

Manhattan is religiously diverse. In 2000, the largest religious affiliation was the Catholic Church, whose adherents constituted 564,505 persons (more than 36% of the population) and maintained 110 congregations. Jews comprised the second largest religious group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) in 102 congregations. They were followed by Protestants, with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and Muslims, with 37,078 (2.4%).[186] Other religious affiliations including Hinduism, as well as Atheism and irreligion, composed the majority of the remainder.

The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown.[197] At 927 feet (283 m), 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in only eleven months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title.[198] At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark 185-foot (56 m) spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929.[199] Both buildings were soon surpassed with the May 1931 completion of the 102-story Empire State Building with its Art Deco tower reaching 1,250 feet (380 m) at the top of the building. The 203-foot (62 m) high pinnacle was later added bringing the total height of the building to 1,453 ft (443 m).[200][201]

The former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were located in Lower Manhattan. At 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 m), the 110-story buildings were the world's tallest from 1972 until they were surpassed by the construction of the Willis Tower in 1974 (formerly known as the Sears Tower, located in Chicago).[202] One World Trade Center, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is currently the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.[203]

In 1961, the Pennsylvania Railroad unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead & White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City.[204] Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called "an act of irresponsible public vandalism" by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for preserving the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage".[205] The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including nearly 1,000 in New York City.[206] In 2017, a multibillion-dollar rebuilding plan was unveiled to restore the historic grandeur of Penn Station, in the process of upgrading the landmark's status as a critical transportation hub.[207]

Parkland composes 17.8% of the borough, covering a total of 2,686 acres (10.87 km2). The 843-acre (3.41 km2) Central Park, the largest park comprising 30% of Manhattan's parkland, is bordered on the north by West 110th Street (Central Park North), on the west by Eighth Avenue (Central Park West), on the south by West 59th Street (Central Park South), and on the east by Fifth Avenue. Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and several lawns and sporting areas, as well as 21 playgrounds. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6-mile (9.7 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, and automobile traffic is banned at all times.[208] While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3,000,000 cubic yards (2,300,000 m3) of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.[209]

The remaining 70% of Manhattan's parkland includes 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts, and many other amenities.[210] The African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street preserves a site containing the remains of over 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. The remains were found in 1991 during the construction of the Foley Square Federal Office Building.

Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers in 2007 drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New York City.[214] In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in Manhattan (New York County) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States.[215] Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing nearly extinct. Manhattan also has the highest per capita income of any county in the United States.

In 2010, Manhattan's daytime population was swelling to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.48 million people to the population, along with visitors, tourists, and commuting students. The commuter influx of 1.61 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any county or city in the country,[216] and was more than triple the 480,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.[217]

Manhattan's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. The borough's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and an important economic engine for Manhattan, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of private sector jobs in New York City, 8.5 percent (US$3.8 billion) of the city's tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$360,700.[218] Wall Street investment banking fees in 2012 totaled approximately US$40 billion,[219] while in 2013, senior New York City bank officers who manage risk and compliance functions earned as much as US$324,000 annually.[220]

New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the United States, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan.[222] Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m2) of office space in 2018,[223] making it the largest office market in the United States,[224] while Midtown Manhattan, with 400 million square feet (37.2 million m2) in 2018,[223] is the largest central business district in the world.[225] New York City's role as the top global center for the advertising industry is metonymously reflected as "Madison Avenue".

Times Square is the hub of the Broadway theaterdistrict and a major cultural venue in Manhattan, it also has one of the highest annual attendance rates of any tourist attraction in the world, estimated at 50 million[37]

Tourism is vital to Manhattan's economy, and the landmarks of Manhattan are the focus of New York City's tourists, enumerating an eighth consecutive annual record of approximately 62.8 million visitors in 2017.[36] According to The Broadway League, shows on Broadway sold approximately US$1.27 billion worth of tickets in the 2013–2014 season, an increase of 11.4% from US$1.139 billion in the 2012–2013 season; attendance in 2013–2014 stood at 12.21 million, representing a 5.5% increase from the 2012–2013 season's 11.57 million.[239] As of June 2016, Manhattan had nearly 91,500 hotel rooms, a 26% increase from 2010.[240]

Real estate is a major force in Manhattan's economy, and indeed the city's, as the total value of all New York City property was assessed at US$914.8 billion for the 2015 fiscal year.[241] Manhattan has perennially been home to some of the nation's, as well as the world's, most valuable real estate, including the Time Warner Center, which had the highest-listed market value in the city in 2006 at US$1.1 billion,[242] to be subsequently surpassed in October 2014 by the Waldorf Astoria New York, which became the most expensive hotel ever sold after being purchased by the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, for US$1.95 billion.[243] When 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007, for US$510 million, about US$1,589 per square foot (US$17,104/m²), it broke the barely month-old record for an American office building of US$1,476 per square foot (US$15,887/m²) based on the sale of 660 Madison Avenue.[244] In 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten zip codes in the United States by median housing price.[245] In 2019, the most expensive home sale ever in the United States achieved completion in Manhattan, at a selling price of US$238 million, for a 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.[246]

Manhattan had approximately 520 million square feet (48.1 million m²) of office space in 2013,[247] making it the largest office market in the United States.[248] Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the nation based on office space,[249] while Lower Manhattan is the third-largest (after Chicago's Loop).[250][251]

The television industry developed in Manhattan and is a significant employer in the borough's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, as well as Univision, are all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels, including MSNBC, MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and began broadcasts geared toward the African-American community in 1949. WQHT, also known as Hot 97, claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan.[253]WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

Based on data from the 2011–2015 American Community Survey, 59.9% of Manhattan residents over age 25 have a bachelor's degree.[258] As of 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving Manhattan one of the nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people.[259]

Manhattan is served by the New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country.[263] The five units of the Central Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, and the Science, Industry and Business Library—are all located in Manhattan.[264] More than 35 other branch libraries are located in the borough.[265]

The scene at Manhattan's 2015 LGBTPride March. The annual event rivals the sister São Paulo event as the world's largest pride parade, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June.[266][267]

Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City by non-residents; regionally, residents within the New York City metropolitan area, including natives of New York City's boroughs outside Manhattan, will often describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the City".[268] Journalist Walt Whitman characterized the streets of Manhattan as being traversed by "hurrying, feverish, electric crowds".[269]

Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched upon Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of women's liberation, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements.[270]

The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase New York minute is meant to convey an extremely short time such as an instant,[284] sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible," referring to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.[285][286] The expression "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908.[287] The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.[288] The "Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans stablehands to refer to New York City's horse racetracks and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term.[289]Manhattan, Kansas, a city of 53,000 people,[290] was named by New York investors after the borough and is nicknamed the "little apple".[291]

Manhattan is well known for its street parades, which celebrate a broad array of themes, including holidays, nationalities, human rights, and major league sports team championship victories. The majority of higher profile parades in New York City are held in Manhattan. The primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the world's largest parade,[283] beginning alongside Central Park and processing southward to the flagship Macy's Herald Square store;[292] the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person.[283] Other notable parades including the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in March, the New York City Pride Parade in June, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in October, and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations. Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other heroic accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway from Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. New York Fashion Week, held at various locations in Manhattan, is a high-profile semiannual event featuring models displaying the latest wardrobes created by prominent fashion designers worldwide in advance of these fashions proceeding to the retail marketplace.

The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League have played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since the team's founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated by the New York Americans, who started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season it played in the Garden as the Brooklyn Americans.[306]

The New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League played their home games at Downing Stadium for two seasons, starting in 1974. The playing pitch and facilities at Downing Stadium were in unsatisfactory condition, however, and as the team's popularity grew they too left for Yankee Stadium, and then Giants Stadium. The stadium was demolished in 2002 to make way for the $45 million, 4,754-seat Icahn Stadium, which includes an Olympic-standard 400-meter running track and, as part of Pelé's and the Cosmos' legacy, includes a FIFA-approved floodlit soccer stadium that hosts matches between the 48 youth teams of a Manhattan soccer club.[307][308]

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a strong mayor–council system since its revision in 1989.[309] The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional because Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment'sEqual Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.[310]

Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 2010.[312] Manhattan has ten City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. It also has twelve administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents.

The Democratic Party holds most public offices. Registered Republicans are a minority in the borough, constituting 9.88% of the electorate as of April 2016[update]. Registered Republicans are more than 20% of the electorate only in the neighborhoods of the Upper East Side and the Financial District as of 2016[update]. Democrats accounted for 68.41% of those registered to vote, while 17.94% of voters were unaffiliated.[316][317]

No Republican has won the presidential election in Manhattan since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of the New York County vote over Democrat John W. Davis, 41.20%–39.55%. Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote, with 59.22% of the 1920 vote.[318] In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%.[319] The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the top seven ZIP codes in the nation for political contributions.[320] The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election.[321]

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. After arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the Five Points neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and brothels, and was known as a dangerous place to go. In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen.[332] The area was so notorious that it even caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who visited the area before his Cooper Union speech in 1860.[333] The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities.

As Italian immigration grew in the early 20th century many joined ethnic gangs, including Al Capone, who got his start in crime with the Five Points Gang.[334]The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily and spread to the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period.[335] From 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, upon which the Mafia was quick to capitalize.[335]

As in the whole of New York City, Manhattan experienced a sharp increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s.[336] Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 88% to 62 in 2008 and has continued to decline since then. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 93%. In the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990, and year-to-date statistics through May 2009 show continuing declines.[337] Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States.[338]

During Manhattan's early history, wood construction and poor access to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires. In 1776, shortly after the Continental Army evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500 houses.[339]

The rise of immigration near the turn of the 20th century left major portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five stories high, constructed on the then-typical 25 by 100 feet (7.6 by 30.5 m) lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants.[340][341] By 1929, stricter fire codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings, were the impetus behind a new housing code that effectively ended the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough.[341]

Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing options. There were 852,575 housing units in 2013[2] at an average density of 37,345 per square mile (14,419/km²). As of 2003[update], only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind the Bronx.[342] Although the city of New York has the highest average cost for rent in the United States, it simultaneously hosts a higher average of income per capita. Because of this, rent is a lower percentage of annual income than in several other American cities.[343]

Manhattan's real estate market for luxury housing continues to be among the most expensive in the world,[344] and Manhattan residential property continues to have the highest sale price per square foot in the United States.[21]

Manhattan is unique in the U.S. for intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide drive to their jobs, with only 5% using public transport, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan, with 72% of borough residents using public transport to get to work, while only 18% drove.[345][346] According to the 2000 United States Census, 77.5% of Manhattan households do not own a car.[347]

The New York City Subway, the largest subway system in the world by number of stations, is the primary means of travel within the city, linking every borough except Staten Island. There are 151 subway stations in Manhattan, out of the 472 stations.[349] A second subway, the PATH system, connects six stations in Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Passengers pay fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains.[350][351] There are 7-day and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses).[352] The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, having been replaced by the SmartLink. The MTA is testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard.[353]Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island; the Metro-North Railroad, which connects Manhattan to Upstate New York and Southwestern Connecticut; and NJ Transit trains, which run to various points in New Jersey.

MTA New York City Transit offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan under the brand New York City Bus. An extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into Manhattan.[362] The bus system served 784 million passengers citywide in 2011, placing the bus system's ridership as the highest in the nation, and more than double the ridership of the second-place Los Angeles system.[363]

The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 21 million passengers on the 5.2-mile (8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each weekday, five vessels transport about 65,000 passengers on 109 boat trips.[366][367] The ferry has been fare-free since 1997, when the then-50-cent fare was eliminated.[368] In February 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would begin NYC Ferry to extend ferry transportation to traditionally underserved communities in the city.[369][370] The first routes of NYC Ferry opened in 2017.[371][372] All of the system's routes have termini in Manhattan, and the Lower East Side and Soundview routes also have intermediate stops on the East River.[373]

New York's iconic yellow taxicabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.[375] Various private transportation network companies provide significant competition for cab drivers in Manhattan.[376]

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the Hudson River, each 100 feet (30 m) wide, with First Avenue on the east side and Twelfth Avenue on the west side. There are several intermittent avenues east of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D in an area now known as Alphabet City in Manhattan's East Village. The numbered streets in Manhattan run east-west, and are generally 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. The typical block in Manhattan is 250 by 600 feet (76 by 183 m).

"Crosstown traffic" refers primarily to vehicular traffic between Manhattan's East Side and West Side. The trip is notoriously frustrating for drivers because of heavy congestion on narrow local streets laid out by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, absence of express roads other than the Trans-Manhattan Expressway at the far north end of Manhattan Island; and restricted to very limited crosstown automobile travel within Central Park, further prohibited beginning in 2018 south of 72nd Street within the park, to augment pedestrian safety.[380] Proposals in the mid-1900s to build express roads through the city's densest neighborhoods, namely the Mid-Manhattan Expressway and Lower Manhattan Expressway, did not go forward. Unlike the rest of the United States, New York State prohibits right or left turns on red in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce traffic collisions and increase pedestrian safety. In New York City, therefore, all turns at red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present, significantly shaping traffic patterns in Manhattan.[381]

Another consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge).[382] On separate occasions in late May and early July, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level.[382][383] A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December.

Several tunnels also link Manhattan Island to New York City's outer boroughs and New Jersey. The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world.[387] The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sail through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel.[388] The Queens–Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940;[389] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.[390] The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel runs underneath Battery Park and connects the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn.

Manhattan witnessed the doubling of the natural gas supply delivered to the borough when a new gas pipeline opened on November 1, 2013.[396]

The New York City Department of Sanitation is responsible for garbage removal.[397] The bulk of the city's trash ultimately is disposed at mega-dumps in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio (via transfer stations in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens) since the 2001 closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.[398] A small amount of trash processed at transfer sites in New Jersey is sometimes incinerated at waste-to-energy facilities. Like New York City, New Jersey and much of Greater New York relies on exporting its trash to far-flung areas.

New York City has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet, which also operates in Manhattan, in the country. It also has some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in Manhattan.[399]

New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountainswatershed.[401] As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants.[402] The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York City's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water.[403] Manhattan, surrounded by two brackish rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water. To satisfy its growing population, the City of New York acquired land in adjacent Westchester County and constructed the old Croton Aqueduct system there, which went into service in 1842 and was superseded by the new Croton Aqueduct, which opened in 1890. This, however, was interrupted in 2008 for the ongoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant that can supply an estimated 290 million gallons daily when completed, representing an almost 20% addition to the city's availability of water, with this addition going to Manhattan and the Bronx.[404] Water comes to Manhattan through the tunnels 1 and 2, completed in 1917 and 1935, and in future through Tunnel No. 3, begun in 1970.[405]

^Sorrentino, Christopher (September 16, 2007). "When He Was Seventeen". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2007. In 1980, there were still the remains of the various downtown revolutions that had reinvigorated New York's music and art scenes and kept Manhattan in the position it had occupied since the 1940s as the cultural center of the world.

^Huw Jones (September 4, 2018). "United States top, Britain second in financial activity: think-tank". Thomson Reuters. Retrieved September 4, 2018. Think-tank New Financial’s study, which focuses on the "raw" value of actual domestic and international financial activity like managing assets and issuing equity, underscored the overall dominance of New York as the world’s top financial center.

^"Top 8 Cities by GDP: China vs. The U.S." Business Insider, Inc. July 31, 2011. Retrieved October 28, 2015. For instance, Shanghai, the largest Chinese city with the highest economic production, and a fast-growing global financial hub, is far from matching or surpassing New York, the largest city in the U.S. and the economic and financial super center of the world."PAL sets introductory fares to New York". Philippine Airlines. Retrieved December 10, 2014.

^ ab"Biggest Stock Exchanges In The World". worldatlas.com. Retrieved October 15, 2017. The world's two largest stock exchanges lie only minutes apart in the Wall Street area of Manhattan, New York City, United States.

^ abHolloway, Marguerite (May 16, 2004). "Urban tactics; I'll Take Mannahatta". The New York Times. Retrieved June 30, 2009. "He could envision what Henry Hudson saw in 1609 as he sailed along Mannahatta, which in the Lenape dialect most likely meant island of many hills."

^Rankin, Rebecca B.; Cleveland Rodgers (1948). New York: the World's Capital City, Its Development and Contributions to Progress. Harper.

^"Henry Hudson and His Exploration"Archived January 18, 2012, at the Wayback MachineScientific American, September 25, 1909. Accessed May 1, 2007. "This was a vain hope however, and the conviction must finally have come to the heart of the intrepid adventurer that once again he was foiled in his repeated quest for the northwest passage ... On the following day the "Half Moon" let go her anchor inside of Sandy Hook. The week was spent in exploring the bay with a shallop, or small boat, and "they found a good entrance between two headlands" (the Narrows) "and thus entered on the September 11 into as fine a river as can be found.""

^Dutch Colonies, National Park Service. Accessed May 19, 2007. "Sponsored by the West India Company, 30 families arrived in North America in 1624, establishing a settlement on present-day Manhattan."

^About Morristown, Town of Morristown. Accessed April 3, 2013. "Morristown became characterized as 'the military capital of the American Revolution' because of its strategic role in the war for independence from Great Britain."

^Blair, Cynthia. "1858: Central Park Opens", Newsday. Accessed May 29, 2007. "Between 1853 and 1856, city commissioners purchased more than 700 acres (280 ha) from 59th Street to 106th Street between Fifth and Eighth Avenues to create Central Park, the nation's first public park [sic] as well as its first landscaped park." In actuality, Boston Common is the nation's first public park. Boston Common, Thefreedomtrail.org.

^Rybczynski, Witold. "Olmsted's Triumph", Smithsonian (magazine), July 2003. Accessed November 20, 2016. "By 1876, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux had transformed the swampy, treeless 50 blocks between Harlem and midtown Manhattan into the first landscaped park in the United States."

^Ward, Geoffrey C. "Gangs of New York", a review of Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker, The New York Times, October 6, 2002. Accessed June 30, 2009. "The New York draft riots remain the worst civil disturbance in American history: according to the historian Adrian Cook, 119 people are known to have been killed, mostly rioters or onlookers who got too close when federal troops, brought back from the battlefield to restore order, started shooting."

^"New Jerseyans' Claim To Liberty I. Rejected", The New York Times, October 6, 1987. Accessed June 30, 2009. "The Supreme Court today refused to strip the Statue of Liberty of its status as a New Yorker. The Court, without comment, turned away a move by a two New Jerseyans to claim jurisdiction over the landmark for their state."

^Harris, Paul. "How the mean streets of New York were tamed", The Guardian, January 15, 2006. Accessed June 29, 2009. "Alongside the changed tactics came a fall in the crack epidemic that had swept the city in the Eighties. By the Nineties police had driven dealers off the streets, thus reducing drug-related violence.... The figures speak for themselves. In 1990, 2,245 New Yorkers were murdered. Last year the number was 537, the lowest for 40 years."

^New York City Administrative Code Section 2-202 Division into boroughs and boundaries thereof – Division Into Boroughs And Boundaries Thereof., Justia. Accessed November 20, 2016. "The borough of Manhattan shall consist of the territory known as New York county, which shall contain all that part of the city and state, including that portion of land commonly known as Marble Hill and included within the county of New York and borough of Manhattan for all purposes pursuant to chapter nine hundred thirty-nine of the laws of nineteen hundred eighty-four and further including the islands called Manhattan Island, Governor's Island, Bedloe's Island, Ellis Island, Franklin D. Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island and Oyster Island..."

^ abHow New York Works, How Stuff Works. Accessed June 30, 2009. "The island is 22.7 square miles (59 km2), 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide (at its widest point)."

^Cudahy, Brian J. Cudahy (1990). Over and Back: The History of Ferryboats in New York Harbor. Fordham University Press. p. 25. ISBN978-0-8232-1245-3.

^Quinn, Helen (June 6, 2013). "How ancient collision shaped New York skyline". BBC Science. BBC.co.uk. Retrieved June 13, 2013. These rocks are Manhattan schist, part of that ancient supercontinent, fragments of Pangaea left behind when the continent split. They are just glimpses of what is below the surface in abundance in Downtown and Midtown. And it is these fragments of very hard rock that provide the perfect foundations for New York's highest buildings. Where Manhattan schist can be found very close to the surface you can build high, and so Downtown and Midtown have become home to Manhattan's tallest buildings.

^Senft, Bret. "If You're Thinking of Living In/TriBeCa; Families Are the Catalyst for Change", The New York Times, September 26, 1993. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Families have overtaken commerce as the catalyst for change in this TRIangle BElow CAnal Street (although the only triangle here is its heart: Hudson Street meeting West Broadway at Chambers Street, with Canal its north side) ... Artists began seeking refuge from fashionable SoHo (SOuth of HOuston) as early as the mid-70s."

^Cohen, Joyce. "If You're Thinking of Living In/Nolita; A Slice of Little Italy Moving Upscale", The New York Times, May 17, 1998. Accessed June 30, 2009. "NO ONE is quite certain what to call this part of town. Nolita—north of Little Italy, that is—certainly pinpoints it geographically. The not-quite-acronym was apparently coined several years ago by real-estate brokers seeking to give the area at least a little cachet."

^Bruni, Frank. "The Grounds He Stamped: The New York Of Ginsberg", The New York Times, April 7, 1997. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Indeed, for all the worldwide attention that Mr. Ginsberg received, he was always a creature and icon principally of downtown Manhattan, his world view forged in its crucible of political and sexual passions, his eccentricities nurtured by those of its peculiar demimonde, his individual myth entwined with that of the bohemian East Village in which he made his home. He embodied the East Village and the Lower East Side, Bill Morgan, a friend and Mr. Ginsberg's archivist, said yesterday."

^Dunlap, David W. "The New Chelsea's Many Faces", The New York Times, November 13, 1994. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Gay Chelsea's role has solidified with the arrival of A Different Light bookstore, a cultural cornerstone that had been housed for a decade in an 800-square-foot (74 m2) nook at 548 Hudson Street, near Perry Street. It now takes up more than 5,000 square feet (500 m2) at 151 West 19th Street and its migration seems to embody a northward shift of gay life from Greenwich Village... Because of Chelsea's reputation, Mr. Garmendia said, single women were not likely to move in. But single men did. "The whole neighborhood became gay during the 70's", he said."

^"Chinatown: A World of Dining, Shopping, and History". Archived from the original on July 9, 2006. Retrieved April 27, 2007.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link), NYC & Company. Accessed June 30, 2009. "No visit to New York City is complete without exploring the sights, cuisines, history, and shops of the biggest Chinatown in the United States. The largest concentration of Chinese people—150,000—in the Western Hemisphere are in a two-square-mile area in downtown Manhattan that's loosely bounded by Lafayette, Worth, and Grand streets and East Broadway."

^Gina Pace (April 26, 2015). "Koreatown in NYC is now being taken more seriously as a dining destination". New York Daily News. Retrieved December 10, 2016. Koreatown – long centered on 32nd St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves., nicknamed Korea Way – has expanded in recent months. The new Baekjeong spot, for example, is located just east of Fifth Ave...Kihyun Lee took an even bigger gamble by opening a dual-concept spot midblock on 31st St. between Fifth and Madison Aves...

^Ensminger, Kris. "More Than Tandoori", The New York Times, November 20, 2016. "Curry Hill, centered on Lexington Avenue and 28th Street, is named for its many Indian restaurants and spice shops."

^Shaun Busuttil (November 3, 2016). "G-day! Welcome to Little Australia in New York City". KarryOn. Retrieved May 24, 2019. In Little Australia, Australian-owned cafes are popping up all over the place (such as Two Hands), joining other Australian-owned businesses (such as nightclubs and art galleries) as part of a growing green and gold contingent in NYC. Indeed, walking in this neighbourhood, the odds of your hearing a fellow Aussie ordering a coffee or just kicking back and chatting are high – very high – so much so that if you’re keen to meet other Aussies whilst taking your own bite out of the Big Apple, then this is the place to throw that Australian accent around like it’s going out of fashion!

^Petzold, Charles. "How Far from True North are the Avenues of Manhattan?", charlespetzold.com. Accessed April 30, 2007. "However, the orientation of the city's avenues was fixed to be parallel with the axis of Manhattan Island and has only a casual relationship to true north and south. Maps that are oriented to true north (like the one at the right) show the island at a significant tilt. In truth, avenues run closer to northeast and southwest than north and south."

^"Keeping New York City 'Cool' Is The Job Of NASA's 'Heat Seekers'", NASA, January 30, 2006. Accessed November 20, 2016. "The urban heat island occurrence is particularly pronounced during summer heat waves and at night when wind speeds are low and sea breezes are light. During these times, New York City's air temperatures can rise 7.2 °F (4.0 °C) higher than in surrounding areas."

^"Big Span Project Initiated by City; Manhattan Plaza of Brooklyn Bridge Would Be Rebuilt to Cope With Traffic Increase COST IS PUT AT $6,910,000 Demolition Program is Set – Street System in the Area Also Faces Rearranging", The New York Times, July 24, 1954. p. 15.

^Gray, Christopher. " Streetscapes/Singer Building; Once the Tallest Building, But Since 1967 a Ghost", The New York Times, January 2, 2005. Accessed May 15, 2007. "The 41-story Singer Building, the tallest in the world in 1908 when it was completed at Broadway and Liberty Street, was, until September 11, 2001, the tallest structure ever to be demolished. The building, an elegant Beaux-Arts tower, was one of the most painful losses of the early preservation movement when it was razed in 1967.... Begun in 1906, the Singer Building incorporated Flagg's model for a city of towers, with the 1896 structure reconstructed as the base, and a 65-foot-square shaft rising 612 feet (187 m) high, culminating in a bulbous mansard and giant lantern at the peak."

^"Denies Altering Plans for Tallest Building; Starrett Says Height of Bank of Manhattan Structure Was Not Increased to Beat Chrysler.", The New York Times, October 20, 1929. p. 14.

^"Bank of Manhattan Built in Record Time; Structure 927 feet (283 m) High, Second Tallest in World, Is Erected in Year of Work.", The New York Times, May 6, 1930. p. 53.

^Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: The Chrysler Building; Skyscraper's Place in the Sun", The New York Times, December 17, 1995. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Then Chrysler and Van Alen again revised the design, this time in order to win a height competition with the 921-foot (281 m) tower then rising at 40 Wall Street. This was done in secret, using as a staging area the huge square fire-tower shaft, intended to vent smoke from the stairways. Inside the shaft, Van Alen had teams of workers assemble the framework for a 185-foot spire that, when lifted into place in the fall of 1929, made the Chrysler building, at 1046 feet, 4.75 inches high, the tallest in the world."

^"Rivalry for Height is Seen as Ended; Empire State's Record to Stand for Many Years, Builders and Realty Men Say. Practical Limit Reached; Its Top Rises 1,250 feet (380 m), but Staff Carrying Instruments Extends Pinnacle to 1265.5 Feet.", The New York Times, May 2, 1931. p. 7.

^Barss, Karen. "The History of Skyscrapers: A race to the top", Information Please. Accessed May 17, 2007. "The Empire State Building would reign supreme among skyscrapers for 41 years until 1972, when it was surpassed by the World Trade Center (1,368 feet, 110 stories). Two years later, New York City lost the distinction of housing the tallest building when the Willis Tower was constructed in Chicago (1450 feet, 110 stories)."

^President's BioArchived June 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, WNYC. Accessed May 1, 2007. "Heard by over 1.2 million listeners each week, WNYC radio is the largest public radio station in the country and is dedicated to producing broadcasting that extends New York City's cultural riches to public radio stations nationwide." "Archived copy". Archived from the original on September 26, 2003. Retrieved December 13, 2010.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

^McGeehan, Patrick. "New York Area Is a Magnet For Graduates", The New York Times, August 16, 2006. Accessed March 27, 2008. "In Manhattan, nearly three out of five residents were college graduates and one out of four had advanced degrees, forming one of the highest concentrations of highly educated people in any American city."

^Purdum, Todd S. "Political memo; An Embattled City Hall Moves to Brooklyn", The New York Times, February 22, 1992. Accessed June 30, 2009. ""Leaders in all of them fear that recent changes in the City Charter that shifted power from the borough presidents to the City Council have diminished government's recognition of the sense of identity that leads people to say they live in the Bronx, and to describe visiting Manhattan as 'going to the city.'"

^Weber, Bruce. "Critic's Notebook: Theater's Promise? Look Off Broadway", The New York Times, July 2, 2003. Accessed May 29, 2007. "It's also true that what constitutes Broadway is easy to delineate; it's a universe of 39 specified theaters, which all have at least 500 seats. Off Broadway is generally considered to comprise theaters from 99 to 499 seats (anything less is thought of as Off Off), which ostensibly determines the union contracts for actors, directors and press agents."

^Dolkart, Andrew S. "The Architecture and Development of New York City: The Birth of the Skyscraper – Romantic Symbols", Columbia University. Accessed May 15, 2007. "It is at a triangular site where Broadway and Fifth Avenue—the two most important streets of New York—meet at Madison Square, and because of the juxtaposition of the streets and the park across the street, there was a wind-tunnel effect here. In the early twentieth century, men would hang out on the corner here on Twenty-third Street and watch the wind blowing women's dresses up so that they could catch a little bit of ankle. This entered into popular culture and there are hundreds of postcards and illustrations of women with their dresses blowing up in front of the Flatiron Building. And it supposedly is where the slang expression "23 skidoo" comes from because the police would come and give the voyeurs the 23 skidoo to tell them to get out of the area."

^"Home Sweet Home", Pro Football Hall of Fame, September 10, 2010. Accessed November 20, 2016. "The Giants shared the Polo Grounds with the New York Baseball Giants from the time they entered the league in 1925 until 1955."

^Meet Cyrus R. Vance, New York County District Attorney's Office. Accessed November 20, 2016. "Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., was first inaugurated as the District Attorney of New York County on January 1, 2010."

^The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, New York City. Accessed November 20, 2016. "The Municipal Building was completed in 1914, but the first offices were occupied as early as January 1913. By 1916, the majority of the offices were full and open to the public."

^Congressional District 10, New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. Accessed March 7, 2017.

^New York's 12th Congressional District, Carolyn Maloney. Accessed March 7, 2017. "It includes most of the East Side of Manhattan and Roosevelt Island and extends across the East River into the Boroughs of Queens (including Astoria, Long Island City, and parts of Woodside) and Brooklyn (including Greenpoint)."

^Congressional District 12, New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. Accessed March 7, 2017.

^Walsh, John, "The Five Points", Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area, September 1994. Accessed November 20, 2016. "The Five Points slum was so notorious that it attracted the attention of candidate Abraham Lincoln who visited the area before his Cooper Union Address."

^Al CaponeArchived May 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Chicago History Museum. Accessed May 16, 2007. "Capone was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York.... He became part of the notorious Five Points gang in Manhattan and worked in gangster Frankie Yale's Brooklyn dive, the Harvard Inn, as a bouncer and bartender."

^Great Fire of 1776, City University of New York. Accessed April 30, 2007. "Some of Washington's advisors suggested burning New York City so that the British would gain little from its capture. This idea was abandoned and Washington withdrew his forces from the city on September 12, 1776. Three days later the British occupied the city and on September 21, a fire broke out in the Fighting Cocks Tavern. Without the city's firemen present and on duty, the fire quickly spread. A third of the city burnt and 493 houses destroyed."

^ abPeterson, Iver. "Tenements of 1880s Adapt to 1980s", The New York Times, January 3, 1988. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Usually five stories tall and built on a 25-foot (7.6 m) lot, their exteriors are hung with fire escapes and the interiors are laid out long and narrow—in fact, the apartments were dubbed railroad flats."

^"New York City Pedestrian Level of Service Study – Phase I, 2006"Archived June 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, New York City Department of City Planning, April 2006, p. 4. Accessed May 17, 2007. "In the year 2000, 88% of workers over 16 years old in the U.S. used a car, truck or van to commute to work, while approximately 5% used public transportation and 3% walked to work.... In Manhattan, the borough with the highest population density (66,940 people/sq mi. in year 2000; 1,564,798 inhabitants) and concentration of business and tourist destinations, only 18% of the working population drove to work in 2000, while 72% used public transportation and 8% walked."

^Lee, Jennifer 8. "Midair Rescue Lifts Passengers From Stranded East River Tram", The New York Times, April 19, 2006. Accessed February 28, 2008. "The system, which calls itself the only aerial commuter tram in the country, has been featured in movies including City Slickers, starring Billy Crystal; Nighthawks, with Sylvester Stallone; and Spider-Man in 2002."

^Holloway, Lynette. "Mayor to End 50-Cent Fare On S.I. Ferry", The New York Times, April 29, 1997. Accessed June 30, 2009. "Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said yesterday that he would eliminate the 50-cent fare on the Staten Island Ferry starting July 4, saying people who live outside Manhattan should not have to pay extra to travel."

^ abSilverman, Justin Rocket (May 27, 2006). "Sunny delight in city sight". Newsday. 'Manhattanhenge' occurs Sunday, a day when a happy coincidence of urban planning and astrophysics results in the setting sun lining up exactly with every east-west street in the borough north of 14th Street. Similar to Stonehenge, which is directly aligned with the summer-solstice sun, "Manhattanhenge" catches the sun descending in perfect alignment between buildings. The local phenomenon occurs twice a year, on May 28 and July 12...

^Ray, C. Claiborne. "Q&A", The New York Times, May 12, 1992. Accessed June 30, 2009. "In a steam-powered system, the whole cycle of compression, cooling, expansion and evaporation takes place in a closed system, like that in a refrigerator or electrical air-conditioner. The difference, Mr. Sarno said, is that the mechanical power to run the compressor comes from steam-powered turbines, not electrical motors."

Burke, Katie. ed. Manhattan Memories: A Book of Postcards of Old New York (2000); Postcards lacking the (c) symbol are not copyright and are in the public domain.

Jackson, Kenneth T. and David S. Dunbar, eds. Empire City: New York Through the Centuries (2005), 1015 pages of excerpts

Still, Bayrd, ed. Mirror for Gotham: New York as Seen by Contemporaries from Dutch Days to the Present (New York University Press, 1956) online edition Questia.com

Virga, Vincent, ed. Historic Maps and Views of New York (2008)

Stokes, I.N. Phelps. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909 compiled from original sources and illustrated by photo-intaglio reproductions of important maps plans views and documents in public and private collections (6 vols., 1915–28). A highly detailed, heavily illustrated chronology of Manhattan and New York City. see The Iconography of Manhattan Island All volumes are on line free at:

I.N. Phelps Stokes; The Iconography of Manhattan Island Vol 2. 1916 v. 2. Cartography: an essay on the development of knowledge regarding the geography of the east coast of North America; Manhattan Island and its environs on early maps and charts / by F.C. Wieder and I.N. Phelps Stokes. The Manatus maps. The Castello plan. The Dutch grants. Early New York newspapers (1725–1811). Plan of Manhattan Island in 1908

I.N. Phelps Stokes; The Iconography of Manhattan Island Vol 3. 1918 v. 3. The War of 1812 (1812–1815). Period of invention, prosperity, and progress (1815–1841). Period of industrial and educational development (1842–1860). The Civil War (1861–1865); period of political and social development (1865–1876). The modern city and island (1876–1909)

I.N. Phelps Stokes; The Iconography of Manhattan Island Vol 5. 1926; v. 5. The Revolutionary period, part II (1776–1783). Period of adjustment and reconstruction New York as the state and federal capital (1783–1811). The War of 1812 (1812–1815); period of invention, prosperity, and progress (1815–1841). Period of industrial and educational development (1842–1860). The Civil War (1861–1865); Period of political and social development (1865–1876). The modern city and island (1876–1909)

Story, Louise and Saul, Stephanie (February 2015). Towers of Secrecy. A series of 6 articles "examining people behind shell companies buying high-end real estate" in midtown Manhattan. Part 1: Time Warner Center: Symbol of the Boom, Part 2: The Mysterious Malaysian Financier, Part 3: The Besieged Indian Builder, Part 4: The Mexican Power Brokers, Part 5: The Russian Minister and Friends, Summary: The Hidden Money Buying Up New York Real Estate. The New York Times